Development of a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Implementation Model: Enhancing Intersectoral Approaches in Tackling Health Inequalities

Pictured: HIA-IM research team in UCC, 30^th September 2024. (Left to right) Kirsty Nash, Monica O’Mullane and Tara Kenny

The HIA-IM (Developing a Health Impact Assessment Implementation Model: Enhancing Intersectoral Approaches in Tackling health Inequalities) project is co-hosted in UCC between the School of Public Health and ISS21. Dr Monica O’Mullane is the principal Investigator on this four-year programme of research. Dr Tara Kenny is the postdoctoral researcher working on HIA-IM. Kirsty Nash worked as the research assistant on the project in 2024.

This project aims to strengthen intersectoral policy and practice in tackling health inequalities through the development of an enhanced HIA implementation model. Specifically, the implementation model will be developed by taking an action research methodological approach to the conduct of two HIAs in Ireland – one at a local policy level, addressing the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028), and a second at a national policy level, addressing the Irish Government’s Climate Action Plan (2024). A key component of the HIA implementation model will be a Community Engagement Toolkit to facilitate meaningful community engagement in the conduct of HIAs.

Project Funding & Dates

HIA-IM is funded by the Health Research Board Emerging Investigator for Health award held by Monica O’Mullane (grant number EIA-2022-001). The project runs for four years, from January 2023 to December 2026.

Project Team and Collaborators

HIA-IM includes colleagues from UCC including Professor Emeritus Ivan Perry, Dr Sheena McHugh, both from the School of Public Health. Dr Ger Mullally from the Department of Sociology & Criminology, and Professor Hannah Daly from the Environmental Research Institute.  Dr Joanna Purdy (Institute of Public Health Ireland), Professor Uduak Archibong (University of Bradford) and Dr Lisa Pursell (University of Galway) are members of the Steering Group with Sheena and Ger. Professor Katherine Smith (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Ivan Perry are mentors on the project.

Project collaborators include Bernie Connolly, Public Involvement collaborator (Cork Environmental Forum- CEF), Dr Ben Harris-Roxas (University of New South Wales), Dr Liz Green (Public Health Wales, HIA Support Unit), Ben Cave (BCA Insight Ltd), Karen O’Mahony (Cork City Council), Dr Ina Kelly (Health Service Executive Ireland- HSE), Dr Paul Kavanagh (Health Service Executive Ireland- HSE), Dr Sara Burke (Trinity College Dublin) and Tadhg O’Mahony (Environmental Protection Agency Ireland). A HIA-IM Public Involvement consultation group has been established for the project including Chair of the group, Bernie Connolly (Cork Environmental Forum), with Denise Cahill (Cork Healthy Cities), Hans Zomer (Global Action Plan), Karin Dubsky (Coast Watch Ireland), Maisie Jones (Global Health Ireland), Nicola Meacle (Independent Living Group), and Colette Bennett (The Wheel).

Study Protocol

O'Mullane, M.,  Kenny, T., Nash, K., McHugh, SM., Kavanagh, P., Smith, K. and Archibong, U. (2024)  ‘Development of a Health Impact Assessment Implementation Model: Enhancing Intersectoral Approaches in Tackling Health Inequalities-A Mixed Methods Study Protocol’ HRB Open Research Platform, 7, 14

A HRB Knowledge Translation Award (TRANSLATE-HIA) is supporting the HIA-IM Project

Title: Translating knowledge on Health Impact Assessment (HIA) to strengthen Health in All Policies (TRANSLATE-HIA)

TRANSLATE-HIA supports the translation of findings to policy and practice from HIA-IM and a strengthening of integrated knowledge translation capacity. HIA-IM is developing an implementation model based on the process of doing HIAs on local and national policies. TRANSLATE-HIA will pave the way for implementing this model into practice to strengthen Health in All Policies in Ireland.

Project Funding & Dates

TRANSLATE-HIA is funded by the Health Research Board Knowledge Translation Award (grant number KTA-2024-009). The project runs for sixteen months, from December 2024 to April 2026. The purpose of TRANSLATE-HIA is to share learnings from the HIA-IM project and to boost the policy and practice impact of HIA-IM’s findings.

Project Team and Collaborators

Dr Monica O’Mullane (PI), Dr Tara Kenny (postdoctoral researcher), Research Assistant (to be recruited Q3, 2025), Bernie Connolly (Cork Environmental Forum), Dr Joanna Purdy (Institute of Public Health, Ireland), Dr Ger Mullally, Dr Sheena McHugh (UCC), Dr Margaret Douglas (Public Health Scotland), Dr Diarmuid O’Donovan (Health Improvement, HSE), Vinnie O’Shea (Slaintecare Healthy Communities Programme), and Leonora McConville (Sligo County Council).

Reports from HIA-IM

O'Mullane, M., Kenny, T., Nash, K., Ryan, M., O'Mahony, K. and Fitzsimons, J. (2024) 'Report of the Health Impact Assessment on the Core Strategy of the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028)'. Cork: University College Cork. https://hdl.handle.net/10468/16851

Nash, K. and O'Mullane, M. (2024) 'Report on the public engagement event for the HIA on the Core Strategy of the Cork City Development Plan (2022-2028)'. Cork: University College Cork. https://hdl.handle.net/10468/16818

Published project conference abstracts

2024:

Kenny, T., M. O’Mullane, K. Nash, B. Harris-Roxas, P. Kavanagh, S. McHugh, and L. Green. 2024. 'Realising the health benefits of a City Development Plan in Ireland: The process and influence of HIA', European Journal of Public Health, 34

Nash, K., T. Kenny, M. O’Mullane, and B. Harris-Roxas. 2024. 'Developing a community engagement toolkit for health impact assessment in Ireland', European Journal of Public Health, 34

2023:

O'Mullane, M, J Purdy, L Pursell, U Archibong, and S McHugh. (2023) 'A theoretical framework for developing a health impact assessment implementation model in Ireland', European Journal of Public Health, 33.

Media articles related to the project

Power, Amy (2024) ‘Public asked to share ‘lived experience’ in Cork city health impact assessment’, 16^th April 2024. Evening Echo. https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41375170.html

Researcher Vacancies

There are currently no vacancies on the project.

Contact

For more information on HIA-IM, please contact Monica O'Mullane (m.omullane@ucc.ie).

Project Logo

Many thanks to Stuart Coughlan (edit+) for the project logo.

Updated February 2025